


like an arrow piercing the earth

by herowndeliverance (atheilen)



Series: at the moment of awakening [6]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: (I tag these relationships because they are still very present in the story), Alternate Universe - BDSM, Collars, Developing Relationship, Dom Aaron Burr, Dom James Madison, Dom/sub, Idiots in Love, Kink Negotiation, Kneeling, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Lams - Freeform, Relationship Negotiation, Sub Alexander Hamilton, Sub Thomas Jefferson, Weddings, Worldbuilding, assholes in love, past Burr/Theodosia, past Hamliza, past madilton
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 16:23:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15976028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atheilen/pseuds/herowndeliverance
Summary: Burr and Hamilton get stuck at the worst possible table at Jefferson and Madison's wedding. Consequences follow.Or, James Madison pays his debts.(BDSM AU. Updates alternate Wednesdays.)





	like an arrow piercing the earth

**Author's Note:**

> And here we go! Warnings for each chapter will be posted at the beginning of the chapter. If these warnings require explanation in the form of spoilers, those will be posted at the end of the chapter. A few general notes:
> 
> There will be no non- or dubcon between the main pairings of this story. However, this may be mentioned as part of backstory.
> 
> This story depicts lifestyle BDSM in a world where that is considered normal, and your role in life has implications for how you are perceived in society. Thus, the way relationships are negotiated here is in no way how you should negotiate a BDSM relationship in real life. This is a fantasy and should be read as such.
> 
> Although everything here is consensual, the people involved will often screw up and hurt each other, because, you know, Hamilton and Burr. If reading about this in the context of this power dynamic upsets you, I would suggest staying away.
> 
> No warnings for this chapter, unless, like me, you happen to have a huge secondhand embarrassment squick. In that case, brace yourself.

The wedding of the century, the headlines all said, but for Aaron it was turning into the nightmare of the century pretty fast. Not that Jefferson and Madison couldn't throw a good party—everything was impeccably done, from the decorations to the catering to the couples' outfits—Jefferson in white, for the so-called purity he flaunted so much; his bridegroom all in black, the only color the scarlet of his bowtie. Aaron admired the effort, even as he mistrusted its sincerity.

The headache of the century, though, was the man fate or Jefferson's caprice had chosen as his dinner partner. Alexander Hamilton was seated at his right hand, where his submissive would have been placed if the couple—the Madisons, he supposed he should call them now, although that was ridiculous—had done him the courtesy of giving him a plus one. Even worse, Hamilton had no date either, so they were stuck with the worst possible table companions: Maclay, who hated everyone and always had a cutting remark to prove it; and one of Jefferson's pet journalists, that slimy Callender. No companions could annoy either Hamilton or Burr more, so Aaron had to conclude it had been done on purpose, to upset and unsettle them both. Or if he were honest, Hamilton—Aaron had never been more to them than a tool or a prop, which is probably what stung his pride the most.

"How are you doing?" said Hamilton, and Aaron could almost believe he cared. "It's so weird that we live like, blocks from each other and I never even run into you anymore. Have to come to Virginia of all places to say hi."

"Well," said Aaron, "you know where to find me."

"That I do," said Hamilton, and smirked. That smirk annoyed Aaron. Always had, because it was an expression particular to submissives who were trying too hard, and Aaron did not wish to think of Alexander as a sub. Especially not one who was off-balance, who needed a guiding hand to soften that smirk into a trusting smile…

The photographer came around to their table, and Hamilton grinned. "You must get one of me and my friend," he said, slinging his arm around Aaron's shoulder and pulling him close. 

The flash blinded him, and Aaron wondered if he’d blinked--usually he could manage to avoid that, if he concentrated on keeping his smile fixed on his face--but Hamilton’s arm around his shoulder was distracting.

“Well, don’t you two look cute!” the photographer enthused. Aaron recognized the vibrancy of her expression as false--that was the look of someone who was one hundred per cent done with this evening. Aaron sympathized, so he let her slip away and didn’t ask if the shot had turned out. It hardly mattered.

Hamilton took a couple seconds too long to remove his hand from Aaron’s body. Aaron was relieved when he finally let go. He busied himself by pulling out Hamilton’s chair, as he would have done for any submissive he found himself sitting next to at dinner. That was why, and not so he would have an excuse not to look at Hamilton.

“I can do that myself, Burr, you don’t have to be like that,” Hamilton said, completely predictably. What surprised Burr was the way he said it--not confrontational but almost bashful.

“Our gracious hosts clearly wanted to make sure you had an attentive dinner companion,” Aaron said. “What could I do but oblige them?”

Hamilton grinned at him, somehow more genuine than his previous smile, and just like that, they were confederates, co-conspirators, in a way they hadn’t been since before the war. Jefferson and Madison were obviously fucking with them, and they wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing them sweat. It was like being in court together...he just had to figure out a way that Hamilton could be the exact right amount of Hamilton for this venture, and not so much Hamilton that everything would be ruined. He could do that, he thought. He’d done it before.

“In that case,” Hamilton said, “will you oblige me by getting me a drink, sir?”

The servers would be coming by soon enough. That wasn’t the point.

“Sure,” Aaron said. “What’s your poison?”

Hamilton shrugged. “At this point, I think I’ll stick to water.”

Aaron felt his heart beat faster. Hamilton would know very well that a sub drinking water at an event like this would signify that he hoped to scene. It was so tawdry as to be a cliche at weddings. There were movies about it; he had watched them with Theo, strictly in the name of being an involved and caring father, of course. Hamilton couldn’t want…

No. The point here was not that he might get to fuck Hamilton. The point here was them both fucking with Jefferson. Much more satisfying. Probably.

One sidelong glance at Maclay and Callender showed that they caught the implications, and were filing them away for future use. They would probably blog about it, a thought that made Aaron want to stab out his own eye with the salad fork just a little bit. Callender, the swine, had the nerve to cast an appraising look at Hamilton.

“Of course,” said Aaron. “Be right back.”

He wished Hamilton hadn’t escalated this quite so quickly. That was his problem...he did things so fast that soon there was nowhere to go. Now Aaron was going to have to play attentive suitor all night.

There was a time when he would have wanted to do that for real, but that time had long since passed, of course. There was too much history between them, too much bad blood. Still, it was fun to play this game with Hamilton, almost like they were still friends. He walked over to the buffet table, poured some ice water into a glass, got a lemon wedge for it because why wouldn’t you? After some thought, he took water for himself as well. Hamilton remaining sober while his Dominant escort was in his cups wouldn’t be a good look.

Although he wouldn’t have accepted the invitation to this wedding if he’d known he was going to have to do it  _ sober.  _ This night was getting better and better all the time.

Over at the table Hamilton threw back his head and laughed at something insipid Callender said--Aaron could tell because everything Callender said was insipid. So that was yet another highlight of the evening.

“Having a good time?” a quiet voice said from behind him.

James Madison was standing in the far corner of the room, unnoticed by most of his guests. Aaron should not have been surprised that he was micromanaging his own wedding from the shadows, and yet he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to be that much of a control freak. He felt a moment’s pity for Thomas Jefferson, and wondered if Jefferson realized what exactly he’d gotten into.

“It’s a wonderful evening,” Burr murmured. “You and Thomas have done well. My congratulations.” He’d congratulated them in the receiving line, of course, but this congratulations wasn’t for exactly the same thing.

“It’s good to see you out, old friend,” James said with every appearance of sincerity. “It’s past time you rejoined society.”

“Never left,” Aaron felt the need to point out. James Madison being the friend who told him he needed to get out more was one of the stranger experiences of his life.

“You know what I mean,” Madison said, with a sidelong glance toward the table and Hamilton.

Okay, so they were definitely trying to fuck with him specifically, and not just using him to get to Alexander. He supposed that was useful information to know.

“Your solicitousness is touching, and on your wedding day too. Speaking of, I should get back to my...table.”

“Yes, you should,” Madison said. “You wouldn’t want to leave your table alone for too long. Take my advice: that never goes well."

Had he just  _ threatened  _ Hamilton? No, no, that wasn’t his style. Aaron needed to calm down and stop seeing red. What was wrong with him?

“Enjoy your night, Burr,” Madison said. “As I plan to enjoy mine.”

He had never thought sitting down next to Hamilton would be such a relief, but it was. It was like being next to him made the world clearer somehow. Calmer. A stark departure from how he usually felt around Hamilton, namely confused and pissed off.

“Hey,” Hamilton said after a few sips of his water. “Mr. Burr, sir. I think I need some fresh air, will you escort me outside?”

“Right away,” Aaron said. He put his arm around Hamilton as they left the table. Just to sell it. It would look better if he read more as a concerned and caring Dominant looking after an overwhelmed submissive friend, rather than a coward fleeing into the night.

“You okay?” Hamilton asked when they went out into the garden. “Your smile is beginning to take on that fixed quality it gets when you hate everything about where you are.”

“I don’t,” said Aaron, compelled to honesty. “Madison is just very...Madison.”

“What did he do this time?” Hamilton asked.

“Oh, brought Theodosia into it. Not in so many words, of course. He’s not so crass as that.”

“He didn’t,” said Hamilton, sounding way more outraged than the situation called for. “That fucker. He crossed a line this time. I mean, there’s playing games and then there’s being out of bounds.”

It struck Aaron, all of a sudden, that James was Alexander’s ex. This was his ex’s wedding. Poor bastard.

“Want a smoke?” asked Hamilton, fetching out his own. 

“You still smoke?” asked Burr. “Filthy habit.”

Hamilton knew him well enough to know that wasn’t a no. He lit Aaron’s cigarette before his own. That was the thing about Hamilton--most of the time he came off all prickly and independent to a fault, but he was also prone to these old-fashioned gestures of gallantry that came from seemingly nowhere. It threw Aaron off-balance.

The cigarette was good. God, he missed this vice. He wasn’t sure if the vice was the tobacco or the boy, but illicit smoke breaks with Hamilton where they pretended they weren’t hanging out with each other on purpose had always been a guilty pleasure..

All of a sudden Hamilton laughed. “Did he  _ really  _ hide in the corner just to goad you about your dead wife?”

“Well, not only that, but yes.”

“Jesus Christ.” And then they were both laughing.

“What do you think?” Hamilton asked. “Wanna get out of here? Get on the first flight back to New York and leave Madison and Jefferson to whatever it is they’re doing? They’ll probably kick puppies as a form of foreplay, or something, and neither of us need to see that.”

“It would seem premature to quit the field of battle so hastily,” Burr said. It was nonsense, of course. He wanted to be here as little as Hamilton did, and wanted to leave for New York with Hamilton perhaps more than he'd wanted anything in a long time. It was only that he didn't know what to do. He would leave with Hamilton, get on a plane or in a cab to the hotel, and then what?

A part of his mind that he'd firmly resolved to ignore forever contributed a few helpful suggestions. Burr did not heed them.

Hamilton's eyes narrowed. “Really, Burr? That's the hill you want to die on? Of all times to stand your ground you choose this moment? Figures.”

He knew how this was supposed to go. He was supposed to say, ‘figures how, Hamilton?’ and then Hamilton would snarl at him because he couldn’t snarl at anything else right now, and they would blow up at each other and not speak for months, playing right into Jefferson’s hands.

Madison had told him not to leave Hamilton alone. Madison had been his first and dearest friend, once, and Hamilton’s lover in truth before the both of them poisoned that well. Obviously he didn’t entirely understand the message, but could it be that there was something more to this than Burr had thought?

Aaron was tired. He didn’t want to have that fight ever again.

“I’ve missed you,” he said.

Hamilton shrugged. “Not much to miss, these days.”

“Okay,” Aaron said, “that’s an odd response, coming from you. Are  _ you  _ okay?”

He regretted asking the question, because if Hamilton were honest then he would have to be, and that might mean both of them admitting they were not in fact okay, and had not been for a long time.

Hamilton finished his cigarette, stubbed out the butt. “There’s something I always wanted to know, you know.”

“Oh?” Burr, unused to smoking, still had more of his cigarette left. He was grateful for the refuge.

“What did you really want? All this time, what game have you been playing?”

That he spoke in the past tense told Burr more about the darkness of Hamilton’s mental state than an answer to the question would have. Hamilton spoke like the game was already over, like nothing they could do mattered. Since when did he give up?

Burr decided to give as truthful an answer as he knew how, in hopes that it would keep Hamilton talking. “Legacy,” he said. “I mean….to be remembered.”

“Bullshit,” said Hamilton. “But what’s interesting is that you don’t know it’s bullshit. Let’s try this again: what prize have you been playing for, really? What is it you wanted to  _ win?” _

Funny. He had never cared about winning. He had only wanted to be in the room. Because you couldn’t win a person, not in any way that mattered. His mouth was dry. He tried to speak. Couldn’t.

“Oh,” said the thing he had wanted for most of his life. “Oh. I see.”

And he fucking well did, because Alexander Hamilton was a perceptive son of a bitch when he wanted to be. It would have been better if he’d reacted with pity, or anger, or ridicule. Instead, he just looked sad.

“Oh, Burr,” he said. “It would have been...a paltry empire for you. Not worth the cost. You should have chosen something else. Someone else.”

As he recalled, choice had not entered into it in any meaningful way. “I tried,” he said. And he had. He had loved Theodosia and still did. He had tried to want being Washington’s staff aide, a Senator, President. And he did. But they weren’t what he’d been playing for, in the end. And they never would be. The first thing he’d ever really coveted would be the last, in the end. He felt a certain peace in the midst of the horror of being discovered, to know the truth of that.

“Ask me for something,” Hamilton said. “Something you want. Something I can give you.”

“Hamilton, you really don’t have to…” This was already humiliating enough without Hamilton trying to be nice to him, for God’s sake.

“Ask me,” said Alexander.

He really was an infuriating, ridiculous man. “Fine. Can we be friends again?”

“That’s what you’re asking for?” Hamilton said, voice teetering on the edge of outrage.

“It’s what I want,” said Burr. That he also wanted other things was immaterial at the moment.

Hamilton held out a hand. It took Burr a second to remember what he was supposed to do with it. 

They shook on it.

**Author's Note:**

> for my co-conspirator


End file.
